When I Was a Boy
by Fuwakateema
Summary: I have lost and you have won CJ/Sam


Title: When I Was a Boy  
  
Author: Jess (fauquita@hotmail.com)  
  
Summary: I have lost and you have won. CJ/Sam  
  
Disclaimer: Aaron owns it all.  
  
Spoilers: very vague season three.  
  
Notes: Yeah, alternate universe. CJ leaves after Manchester.   
  
Thanks: For Sidda for helping me get it right...always!   
  
  
  
The wind is biting, and the rain unforgiving. She misses the sunshine, and the warmth, and the palm trees. She dreams of the sound of the ocean outside her window, and blames her freezing and forgetting on him. She grips the steering wheel and thinks that maybe, just maybe, she's not meant to be here.  
  
She can't bring herself to open the door, can't bring herself to face the hostile glares and the unspoken accusations. And so she watches the others huddle together as they make their way through the intimidating doors. She recognizes a few friends and a few enemies. But no one notices her in the nondescript black rental car.  
  
She turns the ignition with trembling hands because she realizes she is not courageous enough to enter the church. Not even to sit in the back. She will swing back to the hotel to pick up her things and change her flight reservations. And then she will send a card. Better this way, she thinks.  
  
She jumps at the gentle tapping of the window and when she turns she is almost sure her heart stops for a few moments. She fumbles with the buttons on the panel, locking and unlocking the door several times before finding the right one to lower the window.  
  
"Sam," she says when what she means is 'I've missed you'.  
  
He looks the same to her, even though seven years have passed, and she feels self-conscious about the crow's feet and the lines around her mouth. But she smiles anyway, because he is still beautiful and she can pretend that nothing has changed.  
  
"You taking off?" he asks quietly, but she hears 'please don't go'.  
  
She wants to explain things to him, wants to make him understand that she is a different person. She is not as strong as she used to be, doesn't wear the mask of indifference. She is vulnerable, and one look of recrimination will be enough to crush her. But he is cold and she is scared, and so she only nods.  
  
"I thought I could do this, but I was wrong."  
  
"He never blamed you, CJ. He was never angry. He would've wanted you to be here."  
  
"He's not the one I'm worried about," she admits quietly. "I read about it in the paper and I just...I'm gonna go."  
  
He is disappointed, she can tell, and when he sighs his breath forms a white cloud between them. He is close enough to touch and she runs a naked hand down the side of his face, startled at how warm his skin is. He lowers his head and for a moment she thinks he is crying.  
  
But he is memorizing her scent, the way her long hair falls across her shoulders and into her face, her expressive eyes filled with trepidation, the curve of her wrist and the pattern of her breathing as she observes him silently.  
  
She tries to pull away, but he won't let her. His fingers are needy as they dig into her palm and she wonders why she has never called him. He was always the most forgiving, the most sympathetic. But even love has its limits, and she knows this better than anyone.  
  
"Sam."  
  
"CJ."  
  
"You're going to get sick."  
  
"Come in with me."  
  
"I can't."  
  
He looks off into the distance where a tree is bending beneath the burden of Manchester snow, and he thinks that used to be her. She follows his gaze off into the distance, to the tree, and the snow, and thinks that just once she'd like to tell someone what she is really thinking.  
  
Somewhere they lose track of time because the organist begins playing the entrance hymn, and even outside they can feel the sorrow, almost tangible in its weight. When their eyes meet again, she sees what he is thinking, and gestures to the passenger side.  
  
"Hop in and I'll buy you breakfast."  
  
  
  
Love is judgment's sacrifice, he thinks. Love the chameleon, changing as much in the presence as the absence of the object. The variety of his feelings for CJ enthralls him. One day it is fascination. She is the most interesting person he has ever known and her movements are magic. The next day it is lust, pure, unadulterated lust. The smoothness of her hands and the silk camisole hinting at the flesh underneath. Another day it is her unconventional beauty. If her face wasn't that flawed, if she wasn't as tall, if her voice didn't roll out in honey-dipped tones, he is convinced she would not be the woman he mourns. And sometimes, often he tells himself, it is admiration. She is sincere and strong in her convictions and, most days now, he feels he is not.  
  
And it doesn't matter that he hasn't seen her in seven years because his heart swells with something he is afraid is love when she lifts the coffee cup to her lips, sipping delicately at the steaming liquid. She eyes him carefully as if she can read the truth in his face and it is only when he looks down that she allows herself to smile.  
  
"I like your hair," he says conversationally because he thinks it is something women like to hear.  
  
"Thanks," she says not unkindly, although she would rather he had said 'I liked your book'. But of course that is impossible because her nom de plum is Antigone Lear, and a man like Sam would never have read When I Was a Boy.  
  
'Vividly inquisitive', some critics had said. 'Inspired' and 'highly intelligent', raved more. 'Alternately hilarious and tragic', they all agreed. The publishers had no explanation for its failure to sell, and her literary agent promised a better deal the next time around. But she knew that she would never write for anyone again.  
  
"Did you like living in Italy?" he tries again because an uncomfortable silence has descended.  
  
"I never went to Italy," she returns quietly as she stirs in more sugar. "I lied."  
  
"Where did you go then?"  
  
"A girl's gotta have her secrets, Sam."  
  
"Fair enough," he agrees readily because he doesn't want to argue. He knows she really spent two years in London, and another traveling Europe, before settling in Santa Barbara. But he doesn't want to scare her and instead leans back in the booth and rubs his jaw. "How have you been?"  
  
They both chuckle at the absurdity of the question, and the tension is broken. He reaches across the table and pats her hand several times before drawing away. "We always talk about you when we get together. Everyone misses you. They would have been happy to see you."  
  
"You're trying to make me feel guilty."  
  
"I'm trying to make you feel loved," he counters.  
  
"Isn't it the same thing?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"I wrote you a letter once," she says suddenly.  
  
He arches his eyebrow in surprise and smiles slightly. "I never received it."  
  
She smiles broadly. "I never sent it."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"Yeah, I chickened out at the last minute. I thought..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I thought you'd send it back unopened."  
  
He nods, because a few years ago, he might have. And he tells her as much. Her smile fades, and she bows her head. Her fingers reach blindly across the table until they find his, and when she links them together, she squeezes. And it is only then that she notices the simple gold band adorning his finger, burning into her flesh until she feels branded by sin.  
  
"You got married?"  
  
"Did you think I'd just pine away for you while you were being seduced by foreign men?" He says the words lightly, but she hears the hurt beneath them. He pulls his hand away and she suddenly feels the cold creeping into her bones steadily.  
  
"Children?"  
  
"And a dog, too."   
  
He pulls his wallet out wordlessly and watches CJ carefully as she flips through the photos, her smile widening with every one. "They're beautiful, Sam. They look just like you."  
  
Silence settles again, and the years stretch before them. She doesn't ask about his wife, and he doesn't inquire about the actor she's been photographed with. She realizes that he is not the man she left behind, and he is painfully aware that she isn't disappointed. He hates what they have become, hates that he still wants her, hates that she doesn't feel the same. But he tries anyway.  
  
"You want to show me your room?"  
  
Unhesitatingly, "Yes."  
  
  
  
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine, he thinks as he watches her kneel before the freshly dug grave. Her shoulders are shaking, with tears or cold, he can't tell, but he suspects a little bit of both. She is mumbling and it takes him several moments to realize that she is praying. When she stands again, her movements are less sure.   
  
"The paper said he died in his sleep."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He was in a wheelchair."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And he was in the middle of writing his memoirs."  
  
"Yes," he repeats again because he isn't sure where she is heading.  
  
"Do you how depressing that is, Sam?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She looks at him with such infinite sadness, but all he notices is the column of her elegant neck, and his fingers burn to touch her. And he is ashamed because he is married with three children, and a dog, and he thinks he would be willing to throw it all away if she asked. But she won't, he knows.  
  
She shivers and sighs. "He never minded the cold."  
  
"No."  
  
"Are you just going to keep giving me monosyllabic answers?"  
  
"I don't know what to say," he admits honestly.  
  
"No one should," she says quietly. "Come on, let's go."  
  
They are in front of the church again, and she is waiting for him to leave because she isn't strong enough to do it this time. He looks at her, and she sees the unspoken promises and pleas written plainly in his eyes. She shakes her head subtly and looks out the window because his mouth is too tempting.  
  
"When you left, CJ, did you think you were doing the right thing?" he asks.  
  
She doesn't look at him when she answers, "Yes."  
  
He was angry for a long time, he remembers. A resignation letter addressed to Leo and an empty apartment were the only good-byes she left that June. He blamed himself for not noticing her pain, her disillusionment. For not realizing until it was too late that he loved her.  
  
"We got over it...we all did. And I know Josh and Toby want to hear the sound of your voice. Give them a call sometime."  
  
"I don't think-"  
  
"Be a man, CJ."  
  
She laughs and presses a chaste kiss to his lips before leaning over to open his door. "Get out."  
  
"It was good to see you again," he whispers.  
  
"You too," she answers because it is what one is supposed to say in these situations. But she really wishes that she had never seen him again, had never felt his lips against the inside of her thigh, had never whispered his name urgently against his ear that morning in her hotel room. He is her weakness.  
  
"Keep in touch," he calls before he shuts the door.  
  
She nods, but they both know it is a lie.  
  
  
  
Months later when she opens his package, she barely notices the bright yellow post-it note stuck on the cover. She is incredulous and her hands are shaking as she leafs through the book, her book. Her eyes fill with tears as she recognizes his handwriting in the margins on some of the pages.   
  
She is not strong enough to read them now, she thinks. Instead she glances at his hastily scrawled introduction and smiles.  
  
CJ,  
  
Do you have any idea how depressing unfinished memoirs are? Eagerly awaiting the next installment.  
  
--S. Seaborn  
  
She smiles and picks up the phone. Dialing the number she has memorized by heart she almost laughs at the gruff voice on the other end of the line. "Hey, Toby. It's CJ."  
  
  
  
The End  
  
When I Was a Boy-Dar Williams  
  
I won't forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand   
I said I was a boy; I'm glad he didn't check.   
I learned to fly, I learned to fight   
I lived a whole life in one night   
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck.   
And I remember that night   
When I'm leaving a late night with some friends   
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe, someone should help me   
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.   
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,   
Climbed what I could climb upon   
And I don't know how I survived,   
I guess I knew the tricks that all boys knew.   
And you can walk me home, but I was a boy, too.   
I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike   
Riding topless, yeah, I never cared who saw.   
My neighbor come outside to say, "Get your shirt,"   
I said "No way, it's the last time I'm not breaking any law."   
And now I'm in a clothing store, and the sign says less is more   
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me   
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat   
When I was a boy, see that picture? That was me   
Grass-stained shirt and dusty knees   
And I know things have gotta change,   
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in, they've got implants to remove   
But I am not forgetting   
That I was a boy too   
And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep   
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard   
I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way   
To catching fire-flies out in the backyard.   
And I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived   
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won   
And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see   
When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked   
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.   
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do   
And I have lost some kindness   
But I was a girl too.   
And you were just like me, and I was just like you. 


End file.
